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Keith Stephens stands at a rally in support of policeman Darren Wilson, in St. Louis. Like many Americans, Stephens has formed strong opinions about the case. Photo: AP

After raising more than $US400,000 for the police officer who killed an unarmed black 18-year-old in Ferguson, Missouri, two online donation pages appear to have been shut down by their organisers without explanation this weekend.

On the crowdsourced fundraising site GoFundMe, "Support Officer Darren Wilson" and "Support Officer Wilson" - two separate pages with similar names - have raised $US235,750 ($252,487) and $US197,620 ($211,650), respectively, for the Ferguson police officer who shot Michael Brown on August 9.

A similar page for Brown's family, run by the family's attorney, Benjamin Crump, had raised $US314,099 ($336,398) as of Sunday afternoon.

The shooting triggered weeks of unrest and demonstrations against the overwhelmingly white police force in mostly black Ferguson, sending Wilson into hiding as local and federal investigations seek to determine whether he wrongfully killed Brown.

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The online donation campaigns have generated some controversy for defending Wilson, especially after some visitors left racially offensive remarks in at least one of the comment sections, which have since been removed.

Both pages appear to have stopped taking donations around the same time on Saturday, and the pages' organizers did not explain why. If a visitor attempts to donate, a message appears that says: "Donations are Complete! The organizer has stopped donations."

A rose rests on the burial vault following a graveside service for Michael Brown at Saint Peters Cemetery in St Louis. Photo: Scott Olson/Getty Images

In a statement provided to the Los Angeles Times on Sunday, a spokeswoman for GoFundMe said the website had not halted the donations.

"Each and every GoFundMe campaign organizer is able to decide for themselves when they would like to stop accepting donations," said the statement from GoFundMe spokeswoman Kelsea Little. "Organisers may also choose to begin accepting donations again at a later date."

The page "Support Officer Wilson," which raised $197,620 ($211,650), is run by a St Louis police charity called "Shield of Hope," which has been certified by GoFundMe as a valid donation recipient.

Photos surround the casket of Michael Brown before the start of his funeral at Friendly Temple Missionary Baptist Church in St Louis on August 25. Photo: AP

The three officers listed on Shield of Hope's state nonprofit records, Joseph Eagan, Timothy Zoll and Jeffrey Roorda, did not immediately respond to emails Sunday seeking more information about the fundraising efforts. Zoll is a public information officer for the Ferguson Police Department, Eagan is a city council member for nearby Florissant, and Roorda a member of the Missouri House of Representatives.

Nor was The Times able to immediately reach the anonymous founder of the "Support Officer Darren Wilson" page, a user called "Stand Up," who has raised $US235,750 ($252,487) and who has not been officially certified as a verified recipient on the donation page. GoFundMe's spokeswoman vouched for the anonymous donor in a statement to The Times, however.

In contrast to the other Wilson page and the donation page for Brown, little information has been given to donors about who is running the anonymous fundraising effort.

In a message to visitors two weeks ago, the anonymous Wilson fundraiser page wrote that it was working with Shield of Hope to become a verified recipient. That has not happened. The fundraiser also gave out a pseudonymous Gmail account to users seeking more information, but did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Sunday.

In its statement to The Times, GoFundMe's spokeswoman said the anonymously run donation page had also been removed from its search results, adding that "this campaign no longer meets GoFundMe's stated requirement of having a valid Facebook account connected."

GoFundMe's security policies encourage users to "only contribute payments to GoFundMe users they personally know and trust. ... Unfortunately there is no way to 100 per cent guarantee that a user's GoFundMe donation page contains accurate or truthful information."

But spokeswoman Little said GoFundMe "has been in contact with the campaign organiser and has no reason to question their authenticity. Finally, GoFundMe does possess the ability to place a hold on all donations raised by any campaign that warrants further investigation."

Nevertheless, she said GoFundMe did not place the hold.

A popular Facebook page that has been organizing pro-Wilson efforts, called "Support Officer Wilson," told followers this weekend that lawyers were working on a "solution" as to why the GoFundMe fundraisers had been shut down, but gave no more information. (The Facebook page is also run anonymously, and those remarks could not be independently verified.)